13 Instagram Background Ideas for Photos that Get More Likes

Sharing beautiful photos and well-designed images is the key to being successful on most social media including Instagram. The better your photos look, the more they will stand out. This in turn will increase engagement, traffic and sales.

While creating these images, some people pay minimal attention to the background. This is a huge mistake, especially on Instagram where images with more background get 29% more likes than those without.

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Therefore, to help you get more engagement, traffic and sales I have created this list of Instagram background ideas for your photos…

These images are pre-optimized for Instagram. All you need to do is upload them onto your favourite image editor and add your text and photos. You can use them to create beautiful looking instagram photos in seconds.

#1 Foam boards:

Foam boards make convenient Instagram backgrounds for photos. They come in various sizes and colours. If you take a lot of photos of people you can use bigger ones. While smaller ones will do for most products and content.

You can also purchase different colours to experiment with. Make sure you start off with the light ones as the aforementioned study found that lighter images get 24% more likes on Instagram.

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If you want to experiment with darker colours you can get them too.

The colours that will work best are white, black and grey. As they are neutral colours and go well with everything.

A couple of other great benefits of foam boards are that they are long lasting and light. This makes them easy to carry around.

Using a foam board you should be able to create a gentle looking photo like this one from Etsy.

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It’s a great photo with plenty of background space. The simple white coloured Instagram background gets the sloth toy to standout. It’s very cute!

#2 Paper:

Paper is another great Instagram background option. You can use various types of paper. They can range from book pages, newspapers, wrapping papers, menus, and so many more. You can even take printouts of designs you like on paper and use them as backgrounds.

Paper also comes in environment friendly options too. If you are looking for that white background for Instagram that is also easy on the environment you can use paper made from sustainable sources.

The Dum Dum Donutterie regularly posts photos like this with their custom wrapping paper in the background.

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It is a nice way to brand their photos too.

#3 Cloth and other fabrics:

Cloth and other fabrics make great Instagram backgrounds for photos. They can range from blankets to clothing to towels. And you can use various colours here too. It would be a good idea to pick clothing with texture more often as images with high amounts texture get 79% more likes.

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Here’s a nice photo from Chobani with a piece of cloth in the background.

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#4 Wood

If you are looking for a natural background, wood is one of the best Insta background options. You probably already have it in your house in the form of your table or chopping board.

You might frequently see it used as background for Instagram photos with food in them. But they can be used to display other things too.

A lot of things will look good on a simple background made of wood. So, try experimenting with wood in the background to see what your photos look like.

#5 Walls:

Walls come in so many shapes, colours and designs. They make wonderful backgrounds for Instagram. If you come across an interesting looking wall do not hesitate to take some snaps for your Instagram account.

If you are very strict about branding and colours you can have a wall designed just for your Instagram backgrounds. You can even use wallpaper.

#6 Water:

Another option for a natural Instagram backdrop look is water. This could be water in a pool, bathtub or bucket or even a lake. It will be highly beneficial if your water looks blueish as images that have blue as the dominant colour get 24% more likes than red images.

#7 Nature:

Creating a background filled with nature should be easy. Your Instagram account can also be all about photos with nature filled backgrounds. As nature can range from a few plants, to grass, to the sky, flowers, mountains, and so many things.

Nature can be very soothing to the eyes.

The above photo from Mango is a great example of using nature in backgrounds.

They just took a photo of a model standing on grass wearing the shoes they want to promote. It’s simple and beautiful.

#8 Fresh produce:

Using fresh food like vegetables, fruits and nuts can also work. They give your photos that fresh look. The backgrounds can consist of one type of fruit or vegetable or they can be a mixture of a couple or more that look good together.

You must already have some fruits and vegetables in your house which you can use. You can also take photos directly at the supermarket if they are okay with it.

This photo from Innocent Smoothies is a great example of how fresh produce can be used to spruce up Instagram backdrops.

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All the different fruits look good together.

#9 Flooring:

Flooring comes in so many designs, patterns, colours and textures. Hence, it is a great option for your Instagram background photos. Today onwards pay attention to the floorings you walk upon daily. You will come across plenty of backgrounds for Instagram.

Here’s a photo from Naps Design that shows a dog bed on some flooring.

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It’s simple flooring, but it gets the bed they designed to standout.

#10 Paintings:

Paintings make great Instagram backdrop photos. You can buy them from painters or you can make them yourself. The design options are endless here.

#11 Metallic surfaces:

Metallic surfaces can also be used as backgrounds for Instagram posts. But you must be careful with picking the background and adjusting the lighting. As highly glistening ones will outshine other components and make it hard to get your message across.

#12 Blurred background

Sometimes you can just blur the background a bit. It could be any of the backgrounds above. The main benefit of blurring an image is that it gets the main elements of the image to stand out. Like in this photo from thedailykelsey

As you can see Kelsey Heenan is sitting in the front, but the background has been blurred. I am not sure what the background is, but I am going to guess it is a gym because she is in her workout attire and the things look a bit like exercise bikes.

This is the main benefit of blurring the background. The background adds to the appearance of the photo, but it gets the person or the item (if you are promoting a product) to standout better.

So, try blurring your background and see if it gets you more likes and comments.

If you’re new to design, blurring might seem like a complicated task, but it is pretty easy to execute by using a tool like Canva.